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Monday, December 10, 2007

Secret Service embroiled in e-mail dispute

By Rebecca Carr | Monday, December 10, 2007, 07:10 PM

Testimony today in a federal lawsuit alleging systemic discrimination against African Americans in the U.S. Secret Service suggested that the agency was not initially accurate in accounts of whether it keeps personal e-mails of its employees.

James Saint-Rossy, a former contract worker at the service, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson that he wrote a computer program in April 2003 that would store interpersonal or so-called “unofficial e-mails,” on a different computer server than the one regularly used by the agency.

Personal e-mails of existing and former employees were sent to that server beginning in January of 2004, according to Saint Rossy’s testimony.

That is important because two former Secret Service officials in charge of information resource management—Robert Buchanan and Allen Hobson—gave sworn declarations later in 2004 stating that the service does not archive e-mails.

The service repeated that stance for the following 3 1/2 years, including during a Sept. 20, 2007, conference call with the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

A few days later, the plaintiffs’ lawyers uncovered a document produced by the government that showed that a special agent had searched the e-mail account of a former Secret Service employee several years after the employee retired. This showed that the service does have an e-mail archive to search. Secret%20Service.jpgYvette Summerour, pictured left, is one of the Secret Service agents alleging that she was bypassed by whites for promotions and discriminated against.

“The Secret Service testimony and argument today confirmed that the agency provided false information to the Court in 2004, resubmitted that same false information in 2007, and failed at either time to take the elementary steps that easily would have revealed the truth,” said E. Desmond Hogan, one of the Hogan & Hartson http://www.hhlaw.com/home/lawyers representing the plaintiffs for free.

Saint Rossy testified that no one from the service had ever contacted him about the fact that the technical staff of the service was writing programs in 2003 that resulted in retention of e-mails between agents even though it was his job to do that.

“The really unfortunate thing is that our case has been effectively stalled while we have to spend incredible resources to litigate for what we are entitled to by rule and right,” Hogan said. “Our clients, who risk their lives for this country everyday, deserve better.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marina Braswell, representing the service, argued that Buchanan and Hobson were unaware that the service stored the interpersonal e-mails, a stance repeated by Buchanan and Hobson when they testified today.

The agency’s official policy was to not keep “unofficial e-mails,” Braswell said. So Buchanan and Hobson were telling the truth when they gave sworn statements in 2004 that the agency did not archive interpersonal e-mails.

There was “no material misrepresentation” made to the court, Boswell said. “We believe the evidence will show there was no intent to mislead the court.”

But Robinson was clearly not pleased. At one point, she questioned whether Braswell had made a reasonable inquiry into whether the two Secret Service officials had given the court accurate statements.

To date, Robinson has ordered the government to produce evidence more than 20 times a number that far exceeds typical cases, legal experts say. And she has sanctioned the government twice.

Robinson continued the hearing until next Monday when the plaintiffs will have an opportunity to question Saint-Rossy.

The delays have frustrated the plaintiffs, who allege that white agents routinely leapfrog over black agents despite higher scores on promotional exams, and black agents are sent undercover because it is assumed they talk the “street” language and where a white “good ol’ boy network” prevails.

“Seven years later, we are still talking about the government turning over information in the case rather than hearing about the discrimination,” said Ray Moore, an Atlanta native and the lead plaintiff in the case. The government has “dragged its feet” time and again, he said.

Moore continues to fight the case, despite rising to the highest levels in the service, because he wants to ensure that “no one faces the discrimination I faced.”

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White House Chanukah

By Ken Herman | Monday, December 10, 2007, 10:09 AM

It’s Chanukah party night at the White House, highlighted this year by the lighting of a menorah initially owned by the great-grandparents of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter slain by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

The menorah is being brought by Judea and Ruth Pearl, the slain journalist’s parents. Judea Pearl’s grandparents - Chaim and Rosa Pearl - brought the menorah with them when they left Poland for Israel in 1924.

“To think that this menorah which has traveled from Poland to Bnai-Brak (in Israel) would one day be glowing in the White House is simply beyond my wildest imagination,” Judea Pearl said in a statement. “This tribute to our son and to the town that his great-grandfather founded in 1924 honors hundreds of thousands of such menorahs which were brought to Israel form many countries by freedom-seeking Jews who, inspired by the story of the Maccabees, achieved sovereignty and dignity by rebuilding their historic homeland.”

Ruth Pearl said her family is “humbled and honored by this unexpected tribute and we hope that our menorah serves as a visual reminder to all people who are facing darkness that, with hope and perseverance, freedom and goodness will prevail.”

Also today, Bush will meet with Jews from around the world who been victims of religious persecution.

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